DNA

DNA .. Bloodlines … Ancestry … Naples .. Bari …

When I went to Italy, I stood outside of a the Hotel Luna in Amalfi. I have been told that the Barbaro’s, my mothers family on my grandfathers side, owned and operated that Hotel. I walked inside. I was fully prepared to introduce myself. I then realized I knew nothing of why my grandfather left Italy. Why he no longer worked or lived in Amalfi. Why he went to the United States. I thought, “Maybe there is some old blood feud I know nothing about. ”

Idk…

So I walked back out and never said a word.

There is an unknowable part of myself that seems to be dictated by the heritage that is Napolitan. I have acquired a raw, somewhat irrational, sometimes violent, always ridiculously emotional inheritance. Dictated by knee jerk reactions and always large matters of the heart. Sometimes overly laborious exhaustingly philosophical internal and sometimes external diatribes.

This unknowable side sometimes seem like a foreigner. Someone I watch reacting to the world. I watch my emotions shift and change and anger spikes and wanes. Blame regurgitates and redirects and it is almost always somewhat undefinable.

The Romulus and Remus statue in Rome was beautiful to see. I was alone in the piazza with it for a long time when I was in Rome. Almost as if no one else was interested in it at the time. It was kind of odd. But I loved it.

I think Naples has a wild boar as it’s surrogate birth mother. At least, I think I have been nurtured and fed and weened on the tit of the wild boar. What else could possibly be the explanation for the foreign being that reacts without thinking. Emotes without provocation. Becomes somewhat possessed in situations that are out of my control.

It could be.

Maybe that’s the animal lineage that lurks within this southern Italian woman.

Anyway, this is the musing of this painting.